The Role of AI in Driving Change in Treasury with Kenny Nielsen

Foreign to this week's Treasury Career Corner podcast where I interview treasury professionals about their treasury careers. Each and every week I talk to them about how they've built their careers, where they are now, where they see both themselves and the treasury profession going to next. Let's get on with the show. This week's show delighted by joined by Kenny Nielsen, the treasurer at Today is a full service technology company focusing on software development, data and business intelligence, AI and automation consultancy services and applications for both the private and the public sector. Now with over 8,000 customers, one of the largest IT consulting and software solutions companies in the Nordics. Now Kenny and I a few weeks ago we had our chat and I said I don't understand what Today does and he gave me a couple of great examples which we can come back to later on in the show to explain exactly what 2Day does. And I think when actually you hear about it with driving licenses and fisheries you'll be like oh and that's the practical thing. So it's fantastic when we come back to that. But we're going to go back to the beginning of Kenny's career how he first started in finance and then discovered the world that is treasury that we know and love. Kenny, take us back to the beginning. How did you first ever start, sir?

Yeah, thanks for that Mike and thanks for having me on. So my career started as a guided didn't really know what he wanted to do exams and stuff so I ended up taking a a two year internship at a at a magazine company here in Denmark with a finance diploma as as the goal found that really fun then into advertising space gradually moving up to to the CFO role for a 30 to 50 people company. And there I actually met a boss that eventually said to me Kenny, you're too bright and too good to keep on just sitting here doing hourly billing, making sure the the bank is reconciled and stuff like that. You need to go and get a higher degree maybe even find some work outside of of advertising. Started out doing the diploma first and with that how do I get a better career going? Started looking at job postings and a company that that many of the listeners would know from Denmark is IP Molomesk Container Company at that time a conglomerate with oil and and a whole host of different solutions applied for a I think what would now be we call the finance controller role. Was invited for the first interview thought it went okay, didn't think much of it. Then they invited me for second interview same thinking. Didn't really think that Maersk would Hire someone coming from an advertising agency. But eventually they, they called me for the third interview and says okay, actually they might actually hire me. So I need to think about what, whether I actually want to do this. This is a fairly big step got into that. Worked there for about close to two years before I was lured back into the advertising world again. I knew a new group had formed loads of Icelandic money at the time. Then the financial crisis hit, especially the Icelandic money. So that what was supposed to be a great, great story, build up of a new company didn't never materialized. I was lucky enough, fortunate enough that I had met people at Maersk that wanted me back. So I was at that time hired back into the treasury team at Maersk.

You and I and across Europe we know Maersk, maybe Moller Maersk and things. But actually predominantly and hello to our US listeners. They may know the group or may have heard of it, they may not know it whatsoever. Particularly because that was your first move back into Treasury. Can you talk through what the size of the company was, what they did and also treasury wise because it's a great place to get an amazing start in your treasury career per se.

So I don't even remember the size of the company at the time.

What did they do?

Well, so Maersk is and was the largest container freight mover mainly by sea, but moving containers any way shape or form had a large US based operation, large US based oil exploration operations as well as a lot of drilling rigs, a lot of supply vessels. So the vessel that goes to and from oil refineries and now also wind farms and stuff like that, huge operations at Maersk I was responsible for our cash management mainly our daily liquidity, managing what, three 500ish accounts, predominantly cash pooled but also responsible for the vast operations we had in terms of our liquidity in, in hard to get places. Not that we succeeded everywhere but had a few good solutions that was, that's still being used to this day in terms of getting money out of, of.

Difficult countries and the treasury there. How big a team was it the time when you.

Oh that was. Yeah, it was a massive team. I think close to 60 people in total but that was also including insurance and information technology. I think what you, what you find a lot of treasury teams they, they built depending on what role they're giving in the organizations I've seen Treasury team, that's basically two people sitting in an office building in the US and then they depend on their local organizations to being able to lift part of the treasury work Others have massive teams such as, such as Maersk and other places. So that's big difference. But it's also one of the things that, that attracted me to a startup environment as today is that there is no group functions. We have the people we have. I have responsibility for the treasury operations, but I also do our annual accounts. I also, I was just before this I drove down to a place in, in in Copenhagen where they with a guarantee, bank guarantee that needed to be to be dropped off. So we do what needs to be done to have everything running.

So we're going back to that role. When you, you'd had some finance experience, new accounting and things and then that's your move into cash management treasury, you're going into a bigger team. Do you think that's better for say some of the listeners today are more junior staff. Do you think they should be aiming to go into a larger team so they can learn more or should they maybe wanting to maybe a smaller team where they can learn might be more challenging to learn the breadth of Treasury. What would you recommend?

I think I would definitely recommend especially as a young person coming into to the world of treasury or finance for that matter, to be at a larger place where you can learn more about sort of the specifics. The back or the flip side of that is of course, and that was the case in Maersk as well, that you get very specialized in one particular area because you have people that needs to, needs to do each their task. Of course, if you join a ad agency, as I did when I was just fresh out of school, then you need to do everything right. But in such a position you never get to do some of the stuff that we were able to do at Maersk or at ethosmith or any of the other places, larger companies that I've, that I work for. So I would definitely recommend that. But I would generally recommend that you try different things, try different roles. I've been a leader, I've been a contributor and I've. You learn from all those experiences and.

You were there for six or six or so years and then you stepped across, you went not to the dark side, to the banking side. It's all right, we're still talking. It's okay. What prompted that moving in, what happened next?

Yeah, but I think that's. And I think one of the sort of questions that I've least thought about in terms of my career that has been a pivotal moment because at that time I basically had three options. I had the option to be at remain at Maersk but in a different role in a project organization, capacity. The role to go to a smaller Danish company with a larger responsibility or to do something maybe not completely different, but at least different in terms of having to go out and sell the services. The benefit for me in that is that it would harness the vast knowledge that I had gained at. After six years in doing cash management at Maersk. I harnessed that to the benefit of the clients of Danske bank at the time. And also the bank, of course.

Describe if you were Danske bank, size of it at the time and who Dansker bank now lots of people will know them again. Lots of people were Europe again, but we. Lots of us.

Yeah. So Danske bank has a. Yeah, I say obviously, but it. They are the largest bank in. In Denmark, a large Nordic regional player at the time. They had head offices in the Baltics Rush Poland, they still have that London and, and in Germany. So from that perspective and they are systemic, important in. In that sense driving a lot of innovation or did at least at the time. I'm not here to. To showcase what they're doing at present day, but that was for me a challenge that I wanted to take on. I had known other treasury peers that had either been in a bank or been in treasury and then moved to a bank and then back again. I saw that as a huge challenge to see if I could lift that role. If my treasury peers would think this is just another sales dude or whether they would actually see me as someone that would give them valid advice.

And you made that move. You were there with Tanska for three years. If you reflect back on that time now from the point of view of a corporate treasurer and what insights that gives you again for the listeners. What do you think? You sit back in your armchair, you're sitting there going, do you know what? That three years taught me this. It also taught me I don't want to do that. What were you thinking? What did it give you?

I think a. It gave me the understanding that if I wanted to go into a sales role again, I would be able to do that. I've said this to, to others before that it's the thing that I've enjoyed the most doing, I think in my entire career. Maybe not the actual selling of things and having to go out and call, canvas call, but being in a sales process where you basically, and in most cases you get one shot at understanding the client correctly, you really have skin in the game. Where I work now and where I've worked previously, if mistakes happened, you would go back, you would correct the mistake, you would get to present again, see, okay, can we get approval for doing this or that project at the bank, you had one shot at getting it right. And, and so that excitement of being in that position where you needed to convey to the customer, this is what we can do, this is what we want to do for you and get them to be on that journey was. That's the, I think the best feeling I've had in, in my years in, in my career. It's definitely not for everyone because does take, wouldn't say stress, but you need to put yourself out there a little bit and saying also to the team behind you that this is what I believe the customer wants. So this is what we need to need to present. Now as I reflect back on it, I think I have fairly good understanding what drives the bank. So when I sit now and I read my loan agreements and negotiate over cash management fees or whatever, I know how the models work. I know maybe not indeed that I will be able to calculate on the back of an envelope, but I have an understanding of the mechanisms. And I think if you ask people that knew me when I was at Maersk, where we really pushed pricing down as much as we could to now, I think I've changed perspective a little bit in terms of having a more partnership oriented approach also because I've been in companies now where we've had to or relied a little bit more on the partners banks rather than just being able to view them as a supplier. Not that we did that at most just to be clear, but we had clear ambitions in terms of driving our costs down.

And also with that, because you're sitting that side of the table technically wise, I know you had a cash management team and technical guys there. Did that give you a far better understanding of the flows and how it works in the bank and or did you not see that so much or outward reflecting on that?

I think and the people I work with and especially Danske bank, they would, I think they, they see me as a bit of a nuisance to be honest, because if they say ah, I'm not sure we can do that, I will tell them, oh, you need to call and then I'll say a name for this specific task. I think in that role in the bank where you're the customer facing person, I think many people will maybe not be surprised how many people are actually behind the scenes trying to get everything to function correctly and knowing people and having that personal dialogue with the people that can actually get Things done is quite, quite important.

And just with that. So you did your three years and you sat that side of the table. How come you attempted back? What came next?

I think it's the only time in my career that I've actually made a career decision ahead of time and saying that I told this to the bank at the time, that's three years in cash management. And then I need to do something else.

No, I'm done. Why?

Because. So, yeah, and I need to say this in a way that doesn't, doesn't alienate some of your listeners, is that there are people in the treasury industry, especially in cash management, that has been there for 25, 35, 40 years. They're really good at what they do, but that's what they do. And I took a very conscious decision that I did not want to be in that position where that was the only thing that I was capable of doing.

I'll jump in there, sorry, Kenny, into a drop. But I think you're right. And it's not alienating those guys because sometimes I get some of those cash management guys come to me and if they're listening today and they go, oh, I'd like to be in corporate Treasury, Mike, I'd like to do this. And I'm saying, I'm sorry, but you've been 20 years in cash. Yeah, but I know what my client wants. I said, okay, when was the last time you did an RFP for a Treasury management system? When did you look at foreign exchange on this? When did you. They don't have that breadth. They become amazing treasury specialists, cash management specialists, rather. They know their silo, but they are the top of their silo. They have to come sometimes right back down to go broad like a treasurer, who knows, like yourself, it sounds like that was similar for yourself, would you say?

Exactly. And very conscious decision to. To say it was three years and then I needed to do something else. And there we had discussions in the bank whether I moved to a more relationship manager position. But I was at that time offered to. To join Erfur Smits, my former manager at Maersk, said I had a position he needed to have filter for a broad treasury person that at the time felt like the right move. And as you say, on some elements, or many elements, to be fair, I needed to start from scratch and having to learn a lot of new things, a lot of things you can say you've. So I've been in a lot of meetings where you talked about loans or facilities or FX or whatever, but having that sort of now it's you that pushes the button to to do an FX trade. You need to be a on the right side but also understand the impact that has in in terms of your exposure or whatever that that is not that I will say it's difficult. I wouldn't. I wouldn't say that but it is something that you need to learn. And I think what was I I was actually 40 right when I joined a Forsmith being in a position where you need to in in some cases learn from the student worker that's been there a year to to know how the systems work, get the right data to to be able to perform your task that I wouldn't say a challenge but that was something that I needed to accept that in this new role I need to learn new things and whomever can teach me that is is is fine to bring Mike to reward.

And can you explain again FL Smith, who are they? What are they? You'd already been in logistics and shipping and oil and gas as it were because it was a broad conglomerate before. What are FL Smith so flsmid is.

Was at least at the time basically two things. So a large cement produced not producer but facilitating the production of cement. So building cement factories around the globe, facility or servicing those. The history of the company was in that side of the business. The last 25 years mining has had a much larger increase in both the revenue and the organization and is now predominantly a mining company. And there I think the catchphrase there is that it's basically from the pit to to to you see gold and whatever material you want to take out of the ground until that is basically the distributor for that. So full service heavy duty equipment both in terms of crushing whatever needs to be crushed but also conveying the material, sampling what you what what needs to be done to do that. And again as with as with the Maersk operations in many different parts of the world, many challenging countries with sanctions and that really interesting time you were.

With that group throughout Lockdown, Pandemic and everything else. How was that for you guys? We touched on it sometimes we're not going to agonize over it. We started the podcast pretty pandemic. Then everyone had time to talk to us which was great. Not making light of the pandemic, but it meant that the podcast was able to keep going and everything else. What was it like for you guys? How did you operate? What was that like and what did it teach you about treasury maybe?

Oh that's it's been a sometime since I thought of That I think initially, I think we saw early signs of how that would be able to impact us because we had operations in China and saw that if this spread, it would also because of how the Chinese handle it. So we were out quite quickly and in securing or starting to calculate what would a worst case scenario be and if that scenario hit us, how would we bolster ourselves for that? And we went out and I think we ended up being third or fourth in, in the Nordics, securing additional financing before the, the prices for those sorts of facilities, they skyrocketed. But also an interesting period. Usually we had expected banks to be with us, but there we actually saw two types of or three types of, of responses. There were banks that say, yeah, we see this is a good move for you. We saw banks that said, yeah, we are not really ready to, to assist you with this for one reason or the other. But we also saw banks that said, we understand that we need to be in this to help our customers, but we frankly don't see a need for you as a company to take such a facility on. Which was a little bit surprising, maybe not the first category, but that there was wide range of responses. And I think reflecting on it at the time was basically this was also new for the banks. The bank's models hasn't had really materialized in getting comfortable. What is the impact of this? Do we want to keep our powder a little bit drier or are we, are we comfortable giving out the loans until we're not comfortable giving out loans anymore? So that's one reflection. It's also a reflection about how things can change in terms of how we communicate with the peers that we're with. It's the first time that I've genuinely sat on a call with someone and this guy was an equatorial Kinnear where we needed to get some money down so that they could buy the material they needed for the next six months. And where he generally said that I hope the best for you and meaning that it was much better for him to sit in Equatorial guinea than it was for me in Europe. That was his perception and I've never felt that before. So we've always been the cozy synodic European Community, safe and sound. And now all of a sudden we were not. We needed to adjust our lives much more than we were used to. But then talking to people that's accustomed to traveling around the world, being in very strange places, in strange environments, in, under harsh conditions, and being able to manage that, at least personally and maybe not so much professionally, good lesson to learn that we'll get through this and.

Then this, this bring it the story a little bit more up to date. So your more recent role, you've been there nearly a year and things like that. Again, two day group. Can you explain who they are but then actually make it real for the listeners? Because I thought and I was very honest with Kenny, I said look, I just don't know what you guys do. And then you gave me two great examples and they were fantastic. Back to you.

Yeah, thanks. So today is a a carve out company that's bought by CBC Equity Partners in September of last year bought out of group. So I now Tour de France on people still ask me ah, but you're working with was it Visma? Are you into the cycling thing? And I say ah, we still live in Visma House. So I see all the posters and if Jonas wins again I hope that he will return to visit Visma House as he did last year. But Visma is a software company where we are a consultant company within it and we are that across the Nordics with large footprints in all four to four Nordic countries. We have a near showing center in, in Lithuan. And what we do is in some sense very simple but it's also a little bit complex because we don't have a lot of products where you can go and say oh this isn't nice iPhone. We made that. So I think a few examples that that I can give is that we use technology to drive change and one of the examples of that is we did a tender many years ago now for the Danish fishery authorities to be able to see how many fish are in the sea to track how many fish is being harvested by the people fishing in in the Danish seas. And that solution is now a widespread solution. It's used in many different countries all over the world. The US authorities is using the same solution to track the flow of fish through their waters to ensure that that we don't over fish the populations or the fish that has a risk of depleting. So we have a great role in that throughout the throughout the globe. That's a thing that we're very proud of. A more sort of hands on example is that I don't walk around with my Social Security card or my driver's license anymore because we here in Denmark have apps on my phone that can do that. We are building those apps. We're building that for the Danish authorities. One of the reasons we are trusted to do solutions such as this where we, where we in and work with people's personal data is this strong background that we have in technology and security operations. So we work with all the national authorities and the countries that we work with, highly digitalized countries, lot of communications online and data security is. It's our bread and butter. If we get it wrong, it's, it will tarnish our reputation in the industry. So really paramount. And it is also one of the examples that we have in Norway of building the solution where people in Norway can communicate with the authorities in terms of employment benefits if they're being laid off and needing to find a better place to work or a new place to work. And being able to do that digitally, being able to understand what a authority is actually writing to, to you digitally rather than. Than a sort of the old school letter that was written by someone that has zero understanding that a normal person would need to. To understand it. That's the solutions that we're working with.

And you touched on earlier, you explained that you've, you've gone the specialist route. You then broaden your role then done banking and things. And you made an example there. You've got quite a wide treasury role if you like dropping off a bank guarantee. That's not what every treasurer does. You know, this is a podcast every day. But in general, what's this wider treasury role like? What are you enjoying about certain things?

Yes. So I think. And if my manager listens to this, you might get. We won't get surprised by my. That I'm saying it is that I think in. In essence, I think I was maybe a little bit of the wrong hire. He would have been better off initially at least with someone with a reporting or a IFS background to be able to do the reporting pieces. That has been quite important to build up from scratch and maybe then have either someone that had a little bit of treasury understanding that could be able to do the things that I do in, in. In that sense or maybe get a consultant and to. To do that. We had a discussion around what the role would be. I understood that it would be basically with seven people in the group functions covering everything from IT security to. To group HR and communication and finance in between that there would be a need to. To be a little bit more of an octopus that. Than I've been used to and I feel quite comfortable in that role. Obviously there's been some challenges along the way that we've needed to. Needed to fix, but core treasury has been a little bit of cash management, ensuring that we had the cash in the right currency in the Right place. We are obviously now a much different company than the companies were before when they were owned by Visma. Just the fact that we have debt, there's a stronger focus now on our balance sheet. Being able to utilize our working capital as much as possible is a, is a change in terms of fx. Really not a lot to speak of. The countries are very domestic focused, but obviously there is elements that we need to do. We do a little bit of trades to ensure that we have the right liquidity, but it's very minute compared to it. And then there is a, a loan or loan agreements that's. That that needs to be, that needs to be managed. And we're coming into a phase now. We've been given a little bit of grace, which I guess is quite normal from the lenders in terms of the reporting to, to them. Where we come into, to a phase now where we need to report to them more frequently in a different fashion than the reporting that we're doing. Yeah, that we've done before. Yeah. But also with the ambitions that we have in terms of going out and acquiring businesses, being able to have that dialogue and ensuring that we have the facilities we need, not just for the next year or two years or three years, but also in the long run until, until we are where we, where we want to be. So I think from that perspective, and I, we knew, or I knew when I joined that initially there would be tasks that wouldn't fit narrowly into a Treasury position. But also in a private equity owned company, there is an end goal, sort of career wise, of being either in a sales process or in an IPO process. And those are things that I haven't done in my career before.

Yeah. And you know, this wider role is treasury plus.

Yeah, it is, it is, it definitely is. But as I also touched upon initially, do have a finance background. I've had to dust it off quite a bit to, to be in the role that I have now. But it's, it's so far been fun.

And just you and I, just before the show we touched on the fact that we're both doing conferences and things with wider treasury issues. If you were being dragged kicking and screaming up on a stage. Right, talk about this. What are the things that treasurer with, plus responsibilities? What are the things that you thinking about that you're not worried about, but you think if that's the next development, this is other treasurers should be thinking about or having a roundtable session. What are the things that you're thinking about as a treasurer?

No, but I actually think there that the company that I work for would basically drive that, that discussion because we do things within AI that I would just go out and sell to my peers in terms of getting data, ensuring that the data that you get is a right and it's trustworthy. But we do have solutions where you can basically decide what is the data that our AI agent has access to and can learn from and then using that either as a tool to ensuring that, that your finance organization that has treasury responsibilities know how they should act in a given situation. IES training, training tool. But also being able to harness and saying, okay, instead of me sitting and monitoring this solution or buying a, a Treasury management system, basically build an AI tool, give it a few rules and then it would be up to the races. That would be what I would talk about for sure.

So do you think that's the end of treasury management systems?

For some it would be, yeah, I think so. Or it could be, let's see. Hopefully the treasury management providers see this development as well and are able to, to get that into the mix. I don't have a Treasury management system, I don't need a Treasury management system. But that would be the area that I, that, that I would see them really think that this could be a pivotal moment in, in not just treasury, but in, in the wider finance community and doing things smarter where we for years and years have talked about APIs getting things out short to low cost environments. I really think that you'll be able to maybe even bring people back into closer proximity as to where your headquarters are. But then building a team that has an AI capability, being able to harness that would be quite significant.

I think a key thing to touch on there is the word smarter. I think that people have said to me was I worried as a recruiter that the rise of AI is coming along? And I'm like, this is brilliant. What I said. Yeah, it gives me more time to talk to people. If I've got an AI tool that can connect me quicker and easier to clients, to candidates, so I can spend more time doing podcasts, more time actually connecting with people and talking about their thoughts and feelings and the way that they are acting. And treasury this and this makes the podcast more. We use an AI tool to summarize this. After this we'll do cleanup of the audio. We'll then put it into this AI tool that then picks out the major themes. Obviously it's going to pick out exactly about AI because it's going to be like, yeah, talk about me, talk about how amazing I am, says the AI. Joking aside, this is. It gets, makes me do more of the interesting stuff, more of the smarter the people. And I get so bored just looking at spreadsheets and databases and things. It's going to make that much better. Similar thoughts yourself.

Exactly the same same thinking that all the tedious tasks, all the tasks that you've either tried to outsource or have outsourced, but I'm really not comfortable with the cost of having it in a low cost environment. Still lots of turnover and those types of organizations things getting missed. You being able to have more control of the data, you learning more about the technology. I genuinely see it as a plus for people here in, in the western part of of the world to be able to, to get more control about the data that, that you have in your organization rather than just relying on someone else to sort through your the data for you. With the biases that they may or may not have, you can teach the AI what biases you would want them to have, if any, and how to use that data. Again, it does require people to think a little bit different. It does require that you instead of maybe taking the treasury management provider, instead of talking to them about how you structure your data best, you may need to talk to an AI consultant or someone that has data as their expertise rather than software provider because the tools here are much leaner in terms of how you set it up rather than what it has been before. So we have one of the live clients we have now on our AI agent, a large telecommunication company, basically 30 days from when they decided, yes, this is something that we want to do until they were live with the agent. We've been doing AI integrations for a long time, but the generative AI is now at a scale where that side of it works. So we've always been good at integrating the chatbots into your, your legacy systems, your system. So you can now actually go in chat with this robot and then actually cancel your subscription or change your subscription and then it's actually done within the chatbot all the way through to your backend system. You'll get an invoice or credit note or whatever you do and then you don't have to talk to anyone else. It's not just someone that will point you to now you. Okay, then this is your question. Then you need to go and visit this page and then you need to do what it says on that. It will tell you what you need to do and then you can confirm or reject this. The proposal that the AI agent is giving you. It's a fantastic tool and we haven't started using it yet for our hr. I would love for that to happen instead of people having to come down or call for how many vacation days do I have? And I'm now going on two weeks of vacation. Can I, how do I register that HR system is just LinkedIn to this. People say, I want to have two weeks of vacation. How do I register that? And then the system will tell you, you can, you have 10 days remaining. So you can add the 10 days using this code and then should we do that for you? And then you click okay, and then off we go. So I really think that in many of the, of the functions that you have in a corporate environment that the AI will be able to, to harness that. And we are here as a company to help our clients do that.

I think it's interesting that you talk about, obviously speak about talent and HR all the time. One of the key things I would say is that I've seen some of the previous studies where you had the pie chart of HR professionals saying they're spending 30, 40% of their time doing admin tasks and things. This is going to streamline that. It's going to take it away so they can spend more of their time doing the value added stuff, which that's the same with us. That's with us. As a Treasury recruiting company, I can spend more time talking to people and having conversations about the stuff that you can't evaluate through an AI. You can do a certain amount, but then it's actually about the value LED stuff as well.

Exactly. And I think the research that, that other podcast on AI that I listen to is really important that you don't also have the mindset that AI is going to take over the world. It might in 25 or 30 years we'll know. But right now, use the AI tools for what the AI tools can do. It's a predictive text model. That's what they can do. Don't ask them to calculate your hedges or anything like that. It cannot, it can harness data, it can sort data, it can streamline data for you. Use it for that. Use it to, to straighten up your emails or whatever so that you spend less time on those types of tasks, but it will not take over, and especially not take over your treasury strategic thinking tasks. By no means.

Okay, so we're approaching the end of the show because you've been very kind with your time and everything else. As you, you've heard the Podcast. So we wrap it up each week with some of the takeaways for. There were so many takeaways throughout the episode. You had that broad role at the beginning and then became more specialized and then back into a broader treasurer role and things like that. But maybe touching on that for the listeners today, what recommendations or what takeaways are you going to give them?

So I think, and might be slightly contradictory, but really try to avoid setting five year targets for yourself, especially in the environment that we're in. Trying to go a little bit more with the flow. What do you like to do as a individual? What gets you up in the morning and if that is striking the best FX deal, then go do that. If it's something completely different, then you should do that. Follow that. The feeling that you have in terms of your work is key, but then also be a little bit strategic about what you don't want to do. So I gave the example of saying with the many years I've been in cash management at that time, three years is max. That I will give myself more in that type of role because then I would fear to be seen as a dinosaur or whatever in that industry and be conscious about that. If you told yourself that's what you want to do, then after two and a half years or three years, you need to then evaluate. Is that still your position? Is this now the time that you need to go do something else or should you reevaluate and say, actually I want to stay here, either because the company is fantastic or because the colleagues are great, or you really just enjoy being the master of that silo. So take conscious decisions more, maybe more in terms of what you don't want to do rather than set your sights on this is definitely do what you want to do because eventually it's never going to happen as a straight line anyways. You need to. And you gave the example that in some cases you need to take a step down. You need to do that in order to travel vertically in. In an organization.

I was going to say, and this wasn't set up. We never discussed this before, but I think for anyone that is listening, if you are getting up and doing what you want to do, great, fantastic. Come on the podcast, talk to us about it. But if you're in the alternative situation, we're getting up and you think, actually I'm not sure I want to be doing this or I want to go a different path. You call us. It's quite unusual. We don't really say, oh, we're the treasury recruitment company. We try and keep that out of the podcast, but essentially if you are doing that, then call us. That's one of the key things. And any final words don't want to. I want to leave them to you as the guest because Kenny, you've been great today. So any final takeaways for people?

Oh, go to today.com if you want to learn more about our AI agent. Don't be afraid of it. It will come eventually and might as well be ahead of the game on that.

Brace it. Thank you sir. You've been amazing to chat to and look forward to.

Thank you Mike. And thank you for having me on.

Pleasure. Hello treasury professionals. Before you dive into the next episode, could you please help me continue to grow the world's only global treasury salary survey? That's right, our one. We run the results quarterly so you know your compensation is constantly benchmarked against the market and your peer group each and every three months. It's amazing, isn't it? Just go to treasurysalary.com takes less than two minutes to complete, start to finish. You then gain exclusive, regular, updated access to our salary survey, keeping you ahead of the curve. The survey is an evolving, breathing entity that constantly tracks the salaries of treasury professionals on a global basis. Currently, we have over 1100 participants taking part by the end of 2023. I want to hit 1500, but that's where I need your help. Please make it happen@treasurysalary.com thank you for being such amazing, loyal listeners. Your support is incredible. Couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Go to treasurysalary.com make it 1500 for 2023. Love you guys.